Tuesday 1 December 2015

TUESDAY 1st DECEMBER 2015 08:36 GMT

Read my book - ENLIGHTENMENT FOR ORDINARY FOLK
 

Also available - EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT FOR ORDINARY FOLK
 

WISDOM, HUMOUR, AND LOTS OF OTHER INTERESTING STUFF CAN BE FOUND ON MY PINTEREST PAGE and FACEBOOK PAGE
TO FIND OUT WHAT I DO, CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE

1. ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1st December 1955
Rosa Parks is arrested for failing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger

After working all day, Parks boarded A bus around 6 p.m., Thursday, December 1, 1955, in  Montgomery Alabama. She paid her fare and sat in an empty seat in the first row of back seats reserved for blacks in the "colored" section. Near the middle of the bus, her row was directly behind the ten seats reserved for white passengers.As the bus traveled along its regular route, all of the white-only seats in the bus filled up. The bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, and several white passengers boarded.

Driver James F. Blake noted that two or three white passengers were standing, as the front of the bus had filled to capacity. He moved the "colored" section sign behind Parks and demanded that four black people give up their seats in the middle section so that the white passengers could sit. By Parks' account, Blake said, "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats." Three of them complied. Parks said, "The driver wanted us to stand up, the four of us. We didn't move at the beginning, but he says, 'Let me have these seats.' And the other three people moved, but I didn't." The black man sitting next to her gave up his seat.

Parks moved, but toward the window seat; she did not get up to move to the redesignated colored section. Blake said, "Why don't you stand up?" Parks responded, "I don't think I should have to stand up." Blake called the police to arrest Parks. When recalling the incident for Eyes on the Prize, a 1987 public television series on the Civil Rights Movement, Parks said, "When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.'"

When Parks refused to give up her seat, a police officer arrested her. As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, "Why do you push us around?" She remembered him saying, "I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest." She later said, "I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind..."

Parks was charged with a violation of Chapter 6, Section 11 segregation law of the Montgomery City code, although technically she had not taken a white-only seat; she had been in a colored section. Edgar Nixon, president of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and leader of the Pullman Porters Union, and her friend Clifford Durr bailed Parks out of jail the next evening.

The next day, Parks was tried on charges of disorderly conduct and violating a local ordinance. The trial lasted 30 minutes. After being found guilty and fined $10, plus $4 in court costs, Parks appealed her conviction and formally challenged the legality of racial segregation. 

The incident sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, from December 1, to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional. It was a major event the the history of the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the USA

2. TODAY IN MY LIFE
Blogging
Set up Christmas tree and other Christmas prep
Housework
Meditation
Me Time
Missus Time

Twitter Followers = 2,039 (down 5)
Non-followed eliminated = 0

@DawnMGrant, @PopularSoftTech, @LS1print +1 untraced
Unfollowers eliminated = 1

@George_Campbell 
New Followers followed back = 0
-
Spammers not followed back = 0
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3. TODAY'S SELF-OBSERVATION
In the Blonder house, we don't do surprises for Christmas. Son doesn't like them, and he and Missus are useless at them. We therefore all declare what we want, then I arrange procuring them all. This does at least guarantee that everyone gets what they want. Missus invariably gets a new M&S jumper and trousers, Son gets a fine single malt, and as a combined birthday/Christmas present I am getting a mini tablet, an Amazon Fire HD6. 

This is mainly a business investment, allowing me to keep up with technology without having to invest in a new laptop, which would be three times as expensive, and a smartphone, which would involve increased running cost.

My ageing Acer Aspire running on Windows Vista already has a long-dead screen, so is connected to its own dedicated mini-television, but otherwise, apart from missing the ESC key (the pad underneath still works by finger-touch) it works as sweet as a nut. I keep all its essential utility software updated and don't burden it with video games, and for high-CPU demanding activities, it's sat on a laptop cooler so the parts don't bake from overheating.

The mobile phone meanwhile is a Nokia Classic - tough as old boots and extremely reliable with at least 48 hours battery life. Last week I managed to get rainwater in the USB port. This sabotaged the USB connection port and shortened the battery life to 8 hours, but it still kept going, and after drying out, worked as normal again! Unbelievable! Fitted with a 16GB memory chip and so plenty of memory, and with some good earphones, it doubles up as an excellent mp3 player. I have no wish to exchange it for a more expensive-to-run and much more fragile smartphone with only 8 hours battery life.

My new tablet will plug the gap between these two devices, doing everything a smartphone does except for phone calls & texts, but without the running costs. Its main purpose will be social media and YouTube on the move.

4. TODAY'S QUESTION FOR YOU
Do you have the Attitude of Gratitude? 

5. TODAY'S WEATHER IN BRADFORD
Wet start with heavy rain
The rain will move away by late morning and it will be overcast and damp thereafter
An initial light south-easterly will swing to a moderate south-westerly by mid-morning
Max Temp = 12 degC at noon
Min Temp = 3 degC at 7am
Sunrise at 08:01
Sunset at 15:50
Moon: 

Weathertrack: A warm sector of air will extend over Britain, bringing moist mild weather
Air Pressure: 1017 millibars and static

6. TODAY'S ONELINER
I hate long distance relationships. That's why I moved the fridge into my bedroom. :D

7. NOW THAT'S FUNNY!

8. TRIVIA
In 1974, a Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onoda  came out of the jungle of the Pacific island of Lubang. He had been hiding there for 29 years, unaware that his country had surrendered.

9. ZEN WISDOM
Our voice resonates with life. Because this is so, it can touch the lives of others. The caring and compassion imbued in your voice finds passage to the listener’s soul, striking his or her heart and causing it to sing out. The human voice summons something profound from deep within, and can even compel a person into action.



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